“Come in,” Jaron said in a voice touched with despair. “Come, Ava, and meet my daughter.”

Chapter Twelve

“DAUGHTER,” AVA WHISPERED, knowing immediately it was true. It had been there all along. Jaron’s strange protectiveness. Watching her. Guarding her in his own way. And Ava’s magic, far too powerful for someone completely untrained.

Of course she was strong. Her great-grandfather was an archangel.

She stepped closer, reaching for Malachi’s hand to anchor her in the beautiful, frightening room. “She’s my grandmother. But… she’s too—”

“She stopped aging soon after she bore your father,” Jaron said, stroking the hair of the woman on his lap. “Like our sons, our daughters do not age as humans do.”

Ava stepped past Malachi, no fear in her heart. The frightening intensity that had bombarded her in the hall had leveled off the moment Jaron entered the room. “She’s so beautiful.”

“Once, she was the most beautiful creature to walk the earth. Her beauty rivaled the children of heaven.”

A wave of longing washed over her. She wanted to touch. Wanted to hug. She was drawn to this strange woman her father had named her after, but she was also afraid. And Jaron showed no sign of letting his child go.

“Ava?” she whispered, crouching down across from her.

There was no furniture in the room except a bed bolted to one wall and a small table attached to the opposite wall. No mirrors. No windows. Plastic pots of vivid paint were lined on the table in precise color order.

Ava looked up and wondered how she had reached the tops of the walls and ceiling.

“I have no idea,” Jaron said, guessing her question. “I’ve wondered that myself.”

Ava looked back to him, surprised by the gentle amusement in his voice. “Does she know I’m here?”

Jaron pressed a palm over his daughter’s temple. “She’s aware, but she’s resting right now. The only real peace she has is when I am able to visit her. Otherwise, she’s quite mad.”

“Why?” Malachi asked. “Is it because she has your blood? The woman we met in Sofia—Kostas’s sister—wasn’t like this.”

“Why do you care, Scribe? She’s the daughter of your enemy.”

Malachi ignored the taunt and knelt down next to Ava, his eyes on the trembling woman in Jaron’s arms.

“I have seen trauma like this before, Jaron, usually on the faces of Grigori victims. Who hurt this woman?”

Ava reached for his hand, strangely comforted by the anger in her mate’s voice. The thought of someone hurting a stranger might not have roused another man’s protective instincts, but Malachi wasn’t other men. Even the daughter of a Fallen angel was someone to be protected.

He brushed a kiss over her temple and waited for Jaron to answer.

Jaron said, “Yes, she has been hurt. In ways you cannot imagine.”

Her grandmother—it was hard to think of her as a grandmother when she looked the same age as Ava—twisted in her father’s arms. Her mouth opened in a wordless groan.

“Who hurt her?” Malachi asked.

Jaron raised his eyes to meet hers, and Ava saw the truth in the rage and betrayal in his gaze.

“It was one of the Fallen,” she said. “One of the others. Who else would be able to hurt your daughter?”

The angel nodded and let out a heavy breath, more human in that moment than Ava had ever seen him. “Unlike my brothers, I doted on my daughter with no thought of hiding it. I’d only ever had sons, then after she was born… I indulged her. She was quite spoiled.”

Her grandmother’s features twisted in pain before Jaron put a hand on her forehead and she settled again.

“Her mother was a lover I held in some regard. Atefah was descended from royalty. Beautiful. Spirited. A worthy lover for me. She survived the birth, mostly because I forced her to let my older sons care for their new sister. No princess was ever more pampered. Unfortunately, Ava’s mother did not survive a second child. She died giving birth to a son.”

“Did you love her?” Ava asked.

“Love?” Jaron frowned. “No. The Fallen are not capable of love. Atefah loved me. Quite desperately. I should have sent her away, but Ava was attached to her mother. So she stayed and died, along with the child. She was the last human lover I took and the only one who gave me a daughter.”

“And that’s why you care about Ava,” Malachi said. “You may not call it love, Fallen, but I can see your regard.”

“As others did,” Jaron said grimly. “It was my own failing. Ava was the first being in thousands of years I held some… affection for. She amused me. If I have a personality in this realm, she reflected it. Perhaps that is why I care for her still.” He looked up with sardonic eyes. “Everything is vanity, after all.”

Vanity, maybe, but Jaron appeared to be fiercely protective. What idiot would have risked his wrath to hurt her?

“Volund,” Jaron said, reading her frown.

Ava’s eyes grew wide. “Volund?”

Jaron’s daughter jerked in his arms.

Malachi picked up the connection immediately. “This is because of your damned rivalry? That was why he targeted my Ava. Why he killed me.”

“It’s about power.” The gold fire in Jaron’s eyes was a banked rage. “Everything is about power in our world. Volund was expanding his territory. He had eliminated his competition in Northern Europe. My allies. He had ambitions to hurt me, though I was a far more difficult target. He hurt my daughter to make a point. She was nothing more to him than a political maneuver.”